The present invention relates to an identity card consisting of several layers and carrying, at a suitable point, information which serves to identify the card holder, and having additional security markings, such as guilloche figures, as a protective measure against forgeries.
Cards of this type are used as information carriers or data carriers for identity cards, cheque cards, credit cards, personal passes, passports and other identification carriers, and there must be security against forged cards. Also, it must be easy to check the authenticity of the cards.
Identity cards of this type are increasingly manufactured in the form of a fused laminate in which a card core carrying the information is protected by other transparent films. Thus, German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,308,876 relates to an identity card consisting of a relatively thick carrier film and a thin transparent film, between which there is a special paper having internal features, such as watermarks, banknote printings or the like, which serve for protection against forgeries and cause differences in the thickness of the paper. The three layers are plastified together in such a way that the internal features are manually, mechanically and/or visually detectable through the transparent film. Further markings which serve to identify the card holder are provided at a suitable point on this known identity card. For example, a photograph in the form of a film transparency is inserted during plastifying between the special paper and the carrier film and is firmly bonded to the special paper. Furthermore, it is possible, at any desired point on the front or rear of the identity card, to laminate a strip of special paper, printed according to security technology, onto the outside of the plastic material, as a field for later insertion of signatures or other handwritten entries.
Paper has the advantage that numerous latent security markings, such as watermarks, banknote printings, security filaments and the like, can be contained therein, while, by contrast, the material which is used for the manufacture of plastic cards and consists entirely of plastic does not contain any authenticity or security markings of this type. When it is laminated to paper cores, it is unfortunately a disadvantage that these laminations can be opened up relatively easily and are thus accessible to manipulations and forgeries of any kind.
German Auslegeschrift No. 2,163,943 discloses a personal identity card which comprises a combination of a support layer, an electrically conductive layer, a barrier layer, a photoconductive layer with an organic photoconductor, optionally a cover layer, a protective layer on the photoconductive layer or on the cover layer, a protective layer on the rear of the layer support and, optionally, a cover layer on the last-mentioned protective layer. In this personal identity card, a number of different materials are assembled to give a laminate which, due to the lack of homogeneity of the individual layers, can be split up so that it is possible to carry out forgeries.